The 5Q approach is simple, adaptable, responsive, effective, and better integrates stakeholders.Project beneficiaries can proactively participate in programs for greater livelihood, health, and environmental gains.

1. • Reducing hunger and poverty requires effective strategies but many traditional
monitoring and evaluation methods are costly, complicated, rigid, slow, and do
not include the opinions of the project beneficiaries.
• The 5Q approach is simple, adaptable, responsive, effective, and better
integrates stakeholders.
• Project beneficiaries can proactively participate in programs for greater
livelihood, health, and environmental gains.
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
Since 1967 / Science to cultivate change
Climate-smart tools for East Africa
The 5Q approach

2. Investment outcome
The 5Q approach aims to simplify monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) methods, in order to improve
transparency, mutual accountability, and the effectiveness of research and development projects. The fast,
easy-to-use, and cost-effective approach offers something that traditional MEL methods don’t: project
implementers receive quick feedback on their project in order to make adjustments during the project
cycle. Project beneficiaries can proactively participate in programs that directly impact their lives, including
throughout the project design, implementation, and evaluation processes, in order to have their needs
better understood and met.
The challenge
Given the difficulty of reducing poverty and hunger and the plethora of strategies available towards
this mission, it is critical to conduct objective and systematic evaluations of interventions, as well as to
critically learn lessons gathered. But many traditional monitoring and evaluation methods are expensive,
rigid, timely, and often fail to include the most important voice: those of the true stakeholders, like farmers
and consumers, who are often geographically and culturally distant from most donor and implementing
organizations, hard to reach, and diverse.
The opportunity
The 5Q approach can revolutionize M&E in development, making it responsive and effective, and ensuring
mutual accountability and integration of stakeholders in a new way. Donors and implementers can be
better connected to the beneficiaries. Research and development projects can be more flexible, adaptable,
and impactful.
The strategy
The 5Q approach asks just 5 simple questions at regular intervals to each one of a project’s stakeholder
groups (e.g., farmers, project implementers, and donors) and rapidly analyzes their answers to assess if
the project is on track, and if not, adapt quickly. Answers are collected through a means best suited to each
group, such as face-to-face surveys, mobile phone apps, web apps, and participatory video. Responses are
automatically stored in a central database, processed, and disseminated through an online dashboard to
visualize changes – for example in knowledge, attitude, skills, and practices – throughout the project cycle.
Contact: Anton Eitzinger, Spatial Analyst and Climate Change Scientist,
a.eitzinger@cgiar.org
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) – a member of the
CGIAR Consortium and leader of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate
Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) – develops technologies,
innovative methods, and new knowledge that better enable farmers, especially
smallholders, to enhance eco-efficiency in agriculture. www.ciat.cgiar.org
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
Since 1967 / Science to cultivate change
May2015.Photos:G.Smith/CIAT